To the dismay of customers, Sunrise Pastry closes down in Easthampton
1
EASTHAMPTON - The doors of Sunrise Pastry Shop on Cottage Street will not open this morning as they have almost everyday for 15 years.
Owner Carl Charette announced the shop's closing Tuesday morning with a sign posted on the front door that read, "Due to circumstances beyond our control, our family has decided to close up shop; this will be Sunrise Pastry Shop's final day of business."
Charette was at the 42 Cottage St. shop to accept kind words and questions from patrons who were surprised and saddened to hear the news, but he declined to give any more details about why the bakery was closing.
"I'll miss the customers the most," he said, looking around at the patrons that filled the shop's booths. "Some of them have been with me since day one." The sign on the door also thanked customers, "from the bottom of our hearts."
Charette first opened Sunrise Pastry Shop in 1997 in a former barn at 108 Park Hill Road. The business, which he ran with his late wife, Bethany, was a wholesale bakery that sold baked goods to local businesses.
The couple moved the business to the 42 Cottage Street location and transitioned from wholesale operation to retail pastry shop in 1999, a year after their son, Carl, died at age 2. Two years later, Bethany Charette passed away after battling cancer. Carl Charette's loyal employees helped him through the difficult time, he told the Gazette in a past interview.
For the last 12 years, the shop has been selling made-from-scratch pastries, doughnuts, cakes, breads, pies, tortes, sandwiches and soups, as well as coffee.
Charette, 47, remarried and now lives in Florence with his wife, Sara, and their son, Kalle. An Easthampton native, he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. and spent 23 years working for bakeries and resorts in New Hampshire. Charette counts former White House pastry chef Albert Kumin among the talented chefs he has worked with.
"I'm in shock, I'm just devastated," said teary-eyed customer Sandra Cayo as she carried her muffin and coffee to a booth. Cayo said she has been visiting the shop at least three times a week for over 10 years. "It's like my second home."
Cayo, who said she has met many of her friends at the shop over the years, called the loss of such a great gathering place "a huge blow to Easthampton."
Anytime she came in the shop alone, Cayo said Charette would sit down at her booth and entertain her with funny stories. "Where else are you going to find a place like this? You're not going to get that at a McDonald's breakfast," she said.
Richard Mills, 67, of Williamsburg, asked employee Jill Tamsin about the store's closing, but she did not give out any more details than Charette.
"It's a shame. There aren't too many bakeries in the area and it seems like a lot of them are closing," Mills said. "I can't understand why; everytime I come in the place is busy."
Tamsin, 30, said that she did not get much advance notice that she would be out of a job. But she is more saddened about the shop's closing than worried about finding employment. "I'm going to miss all our regulars so much," she said while serving customers behind the counter. "As soon as they walk through the door, we know exactly what they want and have it on the counter. It's just little things like that that I'll miss."
Rebecca Everett can be reached at reverett@gazettenet.com.
